STUDY: Wages, protections make New England a great place to work

Matthew Reid

Tuesday

Sep 10, 2019 at 10:44 AM

New England states are used to scoring well on national studies and reports that rank things like the best place to get an education or where to find great healthcare. When it comes to working, it would seem most New England states are the place to punch in and out each day.

For the second year in a row, much of the region scored high on the nonprofit organization Oxfam’s state labor laws and worker protection rankings.

Jillian Stewart has seen firsthand the disparity in workplace experience among states, based on what it was like being pregnant 10 years ago in suburban Detroit, compared to having her second baby two years ago when she lived and worked in Weymouth.

Stewart remembers having difficulty getting time off from work to go to medical appointments in Michigan and having to “fight tooth and nail” with her employer, a dentist, to provide what she considered adequate accommodations to pump breast milk.

She now works as a medical receptionist in Weymouth, and says the differences are night and day.

“From the day I said I was pregnant to months after my second child’s birth, I was covered,” she said. “I had everything I needed.”

Massachusetts landed fourth on Oxfam’s 2019 Best States to Work Index, with Maine (fifth), Rhode Island (seventh), Vermont (eighth) and Connecticut (ninth) all scoring high on the list.

Washington D.C. received the highest score overall, followed by California.

The BSWI considered three main policy areas: do workers earn as close to a living wage as possible; are workers granted protections for time off for sickness or pregnancy, or legal protections against sexual harassment; and are policies in place to protect the rights of workers to find a voice through organizing and sustaining a trade union if they desire.

Michigan, by comparison, was 33rd on the list, failing in the two categories Stewart found she needed most upon moving to Weymouth. According to the study, Michigan does not provide accommodations for pregnant workers, nor does it offer protections for workplace breastfeeding.

“Being pregnant is stressful enough without having to worry if your job will somehow punish you or make it harder for you to have a child,” Stewart said. “We moved to Massachusetts because my husband was getting his master’s degree out here, but it being a state with such strong worker protections was a huge plus for me and my family.”

Mary Babic, one of the authors and researchers of the Oxfam report, said New England often leads the way in terms of rights for workers.

“The nature of the laws and legislation in this part of the country are largely democratic and progressive,” Babic said. “The history of the region, and of Massachusetts in general, has always favored workers and citizens’ rights. There’s the abolitionist movement, there’s strong urbanization. The fact that New England states scored so high [on the Index] is not a surprise.”

Wages and other rights

When Tufts University dining hall workers organized in March over their contract, Somerville resident and long-time laborer Mario Bello was with them. He remembers working at Northeastern University in 2017 and supporting dining hall staff during those negotiations, so he showed up at Tufts to do the same.

“You can’t organize in all parts of the country like you can here,” Bello said. “It shouldn’t have to come to that, but it’s reassuring to know that if it does, we have rights. Our voices will be heard.”

Benefits don’t stop at union workers, either. Julian Bartlett is a recent Stonehill College graduate. He grew up in nearby East Bridgewater, and worked nights at a pizzeria throughout college. He said that although he was paid the state’s minimum wage of $12 per hour for most of his time at the restaurant, it was enough to pay for a car and off-campus housing.

“Could I support a family on it, no, but I have friends in New Hampshire who were getting four bucks an hour less than me for doing similar work,” Bartlett said. “It adds up.”

New Hampshire is the one New England state to not score high on the list, and is also the state with the lowest minimum wage in the region. The Granite State (which placed 23rd overall) offers the federal minimum rate of $7.25. This led to scoring 49th in wage policies.

“Compared to neighboring Vermont, you see a very different culture in New Hampshire when it comes to workers’ rights,” Babic said.

Maine scored particularly well for the study’s minimum wage component, ranking second out of all states for wage policies. The state has a high minimum wage of $11 per hour, compared to a relatively low cost of living.

States have the power

Dale King worked in a factory in greater Hartford, Conn. for decades before relocating to Shrewsbury. Now retired, he said as he’s gotten older, he’s come to appreciate the rights he was afforded working in a part of the country where laws protect workers. It’s one of the main things he looks for when supporting a local candidate for office.

“Where do they stand on unions, do they encourage growth in business and the economy? That’s what I want to know,” King said.

King grew up in a part of the country where working conditions weren’t as strong, and said he sees a connection between a satisfied, motivated workforce and the policy-makers in charge.

“Below the Mason-Dixon Line, you don’t always know if the people elected to serve you are setting you up to succeed,” he said. “When I moved up here, it was different. There’s something special about living around here, and part of that is the rights given to us.”

Babic agreed, after having worked on the Best States to Work Index for the past two years.

“It’s quite clear what these local laws mean in terms of quality of life for workers,” she said. “Many states are starting to restore the balance over the rights they give their workers, and that makes a huge difference. That’s why it's important to give states a report card on what they are doing wrong, and what they are doing right.”